Former state Rep. Sara Gagliardi of Arvada and current Arvada City Councilwoman Rachel Zenzinger are vying for the seat.

State Rep. Tracy Kraft-Tharp, an Arvada Democrat, considered the Senate District 19 vacancy, but on Friday announced via Twitter she would remain in the House and endorsed Gagliardi. In 2010, Gagliardi lost her re-election bid to Republican Rep. Libby Szabo in House District 27.

Zenzinger announced on Friday the endorsement of Sen. Mary Hodge, D-Brighton.

A Democratic vacancy committee will select Hudak’s successor. The replacement would serve in the upcoming legislative session but would have to run for the seat in November 2014 to keep it.

Democrats hold a single-seat majority (18-17) in the Senate after former Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and former Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo were ousted from office in September recall elections.

Organizers in the Hudak recall said on Wednesday they still plan to submit signatures to secretary of state’s office next week, despite Hudak’s resignation.

Colorado Democratic party chairman Rick Palacio joined The Denver Post’s Kurtis Lee and Lynn Bartels to discuss the resignation of Evie Hudak, who faced a recall for her votes for stricter gun control laws in Colorado during the last legislative session. Two other Democratic lawmakers — Sen. John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron — already were ousted for their support. Palacio said at least part of the effort was made to ensure voters in Arvada didn’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a recall election. Hudak’s resignation means a Democrat will be appointed to her seat.

In the final segment, Lee, Bartels and Palacio talk about what they’re thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Gerardo Uribe, one of the targets in a federal raid last week on Denver-area marijuana businesses, spoke to the Denver City Council during a public hearing in September about marijuana regulations.

Uribe told the council he owns seven dispensaries in Denver, eight grows and a manufacturing business with 160 employees and wanted help in getting licensed. He told the council he had applied for a license a year ago and hadn’t seen any resolution.

Uribe is connected to VIP Cannabis,, which was raided Thursday by agents with the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service. Sources told The Denver Post that the raids are focused on possible connections the business has with a Colombian drug cartel.

Also speaking before the City Council that day was John Frank Esmeral, who also was targeted in the raids.

State officials says VIP Cannabis has had license pending for three years and did not give a reason why.

On Monday, the City Council gave initial approval to banning outside smoking of marijuana on private property if it can be visible from the street or sidewalk. The council voted 7-5 with Chris Nevitt, Mary Beth Susman, Charlie Brown, Robin Kniech and Susan Shepherd voting against the measure.

The swing vote was Albus Brooks, who previously had supported a version of the bill that would have let people smoke anywhere on their property. He said he changed his mind because of the recent raids and the possible connection to a drug cartel.

“That caused some alarm to me,” he said. “My vote will be with neighborhoods and giving them as much protection as we can.”

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A wave of big money contributions from unions and PACs has flowed into the effort to help Democratic Sen. Evie Hudak stave off a potential recall election — one week before organizers plan to submit signatures to force the special election.

Sen. Evie Hudak

Finance reports filed late Monday night reveal the Democracy Defense Fund, which is backing Hudak, received about $120,000 in the reporting period from Oct. 21 until Nov. 19.

A snapshot of the reports reveals the NEA Fund for Children and Education, a Washington, D.C. – based political action committee, bankrolled the group with $25,000 and the union AFSCME doled out $20,000. Colorado’s AFL-CIO contributed $15,000, while the International Association of Firefighters contributed $10,000.

Through large donations from unions and PACs, the Democracy Defense Fund easily outpaced proponents to the recall in fundraising totals. Last week, Recall Hudak Too, the group looking to oust Hudak, reported raising $64,600 in the same time frame, with most of the money coming from hundreds of small dollar contributors.

Most of the expenditures reported by the Democracy Defense Fund went toward consulting services by the national communications firm Strategies 360, which has a Denver office, and Oregon based Democracy Resources (this group specializes in ballot measure qualification and direct voter contact).

Former Arapahoe County Clerk Nancy Doty says she’s “seriously” considering a run for secretary of state next year, although she likely won’t make a decision until January.

Republican Nancy Doty

If Doty does run, she’ll face El Paso County Clerk Wayne Williams in the Republican primary. He already has lined up a number of high-profile endorsements, but Doty said she doesn’t believe people are even paying attention to the race yet.

Doty won her first election as clerk in 2004 and was elected Arapahoe County commissioner in 2012. She briefly continued to handled both clerk and commissioner duties until her successor was named.

Democrats running for secretary of state are Joe Neguse, a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, and former Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, who said today he likely won’t run although until now he has kept his campaign finance reports up to date.

An ammunition magazine used by the gunman who killed 20-first graders at Sandy Hook elementary in Newtown, Conn., last December was made by the Colorado manufacturer Magpul, according to a detailed report unveiled on Monday.

Ballistic evidence from the 44-page report released by the Connecticut State Attorney’s office notes the gunman, Adam Lanza, used “a total of twenty-four rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition found, of which ten rounds were in one PMAG 30 magazine, thirteen rounds were in another such magazine and one live round was on the floor. There was a third empty PMAG 30 magazine seized. There were a total of eighty expended 5.56 mm casings seized from classroom 8.”

The PMAG 30 — a 30-round ammunition magazine — is manufactured and widely sold by Magpul. The Erie-based magazine manufacturer made headlines this past legislative session when it vowed to leave the state if lawmakers passed a measure limiting ammunition magazines to 15 rounds.

The Joint Budget Committee’s certificate to Attorney General John Suthers.

Attorney General John Suthers

A bit of Colorado history is needed in order to understand why the Joint Budget Committee presented a certificate to Attorney General John Suthers for appearing nine times before the group without suffering a heart attack.

Suthers said the certificate had nothing to do with his surviving budget cuts and JBC decisions. It had to do with the late Duke Dunbar, attorney general from 1951 to 1972 and Colorado’s longest serving officeholder.

From “The People’s Lawyer, The History of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office,” by Suthers and Terri Connell:

“On November 2, 1972, Dunbar attended a Joint Budget Committee meeting to discuss his office budget. In the course of the hearing, he felt a severe pain in his head and asked for a recess. By the time he reached his office on the first floor of the capitol, he had lost his eyesight. He was suffering a stroke. Two Assistants drove him to St. Luke’s Hopsital where he died at 2:10 a.m. on November 3rd.”

The mere mention of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg incites Colorado Republicans so it was bit of shocker to see state Treasurer Walker Stapleton actually quoting the mayor in a recent press release.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at the opening ceremony of Four World Trade Center earlier this month. (Getty Images)

“Recently Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly stated that an 8 percent return was ‘absolutely hysterical’ and even a 7 percent return is ‘indefensible,’ when the New York City pension plan was undergoing discussions to lower their expected rate of return,” Stapleton said in the release.

Michael Bloomberg! New York City! What was the Republican state treasurer thinking? Didn’t he get the memo about vilifying Bloomberg 24-7?

Campaign finance reports unveiled Thursday night showed that the group organizing to recall Democratic Sen. Evie Hudak raised about $64,600 in a period from mid-October until mid-November.

The group, Recall Hudak Too, raked in hundreds of contributions that range from $10 to $1,000 (Newly elected state Sen. Bernie Herpin, R-Colorado Springs, who won his seat in the John Morse recall, contributed $1,000). The donations come from contributors nationwide. In the group’s first reporting period, it raised about $23,300.

In the same reporting period filed Thursday, the group doled out $43,700 in expenditures, with $27,500 going to the El Paso County – based TPM LLC for “Consultant & Professional services.” An inquiry late Thursday night to the Recall Hudak Too campaign for more information about TPM’s services was not immediately answered.

Another chunk of cash, about $2,844, went to Grand Junction-based Tactical Data Solutions, which “maintains proprietary voter, district and precinct level historic data.”

Organizers have until Dec. 3 to gather nearly 18,900 signatures in Hudak’s Arvada-based Senate District 19 to force a special election of the state lawmaker for her support of stricter Colorado gun laws. The state’s most powerful anti-gun control group, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, is working closely with the Recall Hudak Too organizers.

Plenty of folks were surprised when a poll released this week showed Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Udall wasn’t crushing his GOP rivals, but state Sen. Randy Baumgardner said it’s not news to him.

The Hot Sulphur Springs Republican is considered such a longshot in the race to unseat Udall that earlier this year one of his GOP rivals, state Sen. Owen Hill, referred to “Baumgardner” as “Randy Who?” Someone had some fun and changed the name tag on Baumgardner’s Senate office.

Sen. Randy Baumgardner

During a Colorado Republican Party fundraising event with former Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday, Baumgardner was asked about the Quinnipiac University poll, which shows him trailing Udall by only 5 percentage points. (Hill trails Udall by 6.)

“As I’ve always said, Mark Udall’s vulnerable and the people of the state of Colorado are looking for something different,” Baumgardner said. “That’s what I’ve been talking about the entire time that I’ve been campaigning. You need somebody to represent and vote for Colorado and not Washington, D.C, and that seems to be where his focus is right now.”

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.